Shaun Majumder, a regular on the Halifax-based This Hour Has 22 Minutes, did not hesitate to express his displeasure with the clip. A professional comedian, he explained, would recognize that the military context was no place to be slinging racial barbs.

The critique was rather sanctimonious for someone who seeks to generate laughs for a living. But then, making that living in Canada requires performing for corporate events like those held by the Gift and Tableware Association, for which Majumder will do a cleaner act than he does in a comedy club.

Perhaps that’s true, in spite of our tendency to amuse Americans more than ourselves.

But in analyzing the death of Canadian comedy, it might be helpful to consider the following conditions that were co-conspirators in its demise.

Comedy shows that get in bed with politicians: Rick Mercer made pals on Parliament Hill while establishing a reputation for pulling no punches against them — now, any comic who does it differently would be considered out of bounds. Toronto mayor Rob Ford was the only politician with the guts to challenge Mary Walsh’s 22 Minutes schtick when he called 911 on her Marg Delahunty character’s ambush.

People who think satire should be partisan: A promising venture called The Satire Project is attempting to launch itself with $30,000 raised via the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. Yet its marketing and distribution will be handled by the well-established left-wing media outlet Rabble.ca. Real satire doesn’t align itself with one political point of view.

Broadcasters that are too afraid of offending anyone: While media conglomerates in the U.S. have tentacles that take shots at one another — consider The Simpsons and Fox News or South Park and everything else owned by Viacom — the Comedy Network in Canada will never attach itself to anything that would cause upset in the ranks of its owner, Bell Media. Yet they’re happy to cash in on American insubordination.

The fear of ever doing things differently: Why would the prospect of a reincarnation of SCTV be considered viable? Why do performers who failed to win over anyone in Hollywood get to come back and regain their status at home? Who keeps putting the same old faces in the spotlight with the assumption that they are better than anyone new? Maybe someone funny will come out of the shadows to tweet the answer.